Vicente Lusitano

1. Project context

This site forms part of the research outputs generated within the FWO-funded doctoral project Renaissance Improvised Counterpoint: Rethinking Concept, Cognition, and Aural Foundations (project no. 11A9922N), conducted by Vicente Parrilla at KU Leuven / LUCA School of Arts / docARTES.

The project investigates Renaissance improvised counterpoint as a historically central musical practice whose procedural and aural foundations are only partially reflected in surviving theoretical sources. Integrating practice-based experimentation, analytical reconstruction, and digital editorial methods, it re-examines the techniques, pedagogies, and cognitive dimensions through which contrapuntal knowledge was historically transmitted.

2. Project sites and research corpus

This site forms part of the wider research infrastructure centred on improvisedcounterpoint.com, which provides access to the project’s digital corpora, research datasets, recordings, and documentation.

A central outcome of this research is the Corpus of Recorded Counterpoint Examples (CRCE), a multi-volume research audio corpus comprising 420 recordings of 276 counterpoint exempla transmitted in Renaissance music theory treatises. These recordings are published as open research data via the corresponding Zenodo datasets and are also presented in contextualised editorial form across treatise-specific companion sites:

1. aranda.improvisedcounterpoint.com — Mateo de Aranda, Tractado de canto mensurable y contrapuncto (1535)
2. lusitano.improvisedcounterpoint.com — Vicente Lusitano, Trattado grande de musica pratica (F-Pn Esp. 219, ca. 1550)

Developed as integrated research environments, these sites enable musical examples to be read, analysed, and heard in parallel through combined editorial, analytical, and recorded components. Each presents a complete source together with newly prepared modern transcriptions, interval annotations, and embedded CRCE recordings. In the case of Lusitano, the site also includes complete French and provisional English translations of the treatise.

3. Site structure and purpose

This site has been conceived as an integrated research environment in which the counterpoint examples transmitted in Lusitano’s manuscript can be read, analysed, and heard in parallel. By integrating modern transcriptions, intervallic annotations, and newly recorded instrumental realisations, it enables close investigation of the procedural foundations of Renaissance contrapuntal practice.

Together, these materials constitute documented aural and analytical evidence of improvisatory techniques, allowing the examples to be examined both as notated artefacts and as sounding pedagogical models.

The newly recorded instrumental realisations embedded on this site form part of the six-volume Corpus of Recorded Counterpoint Examples (CRCE). While accessible here in contextualised editorial form, they are also available for independent analytical and practice-based study and download via the corresponding Zenodo datasets.

These recordings were produced in a controlled home-studio environment; listening with headphones is therefore recommended. The structure of the site follows the original chapter sequence and foliation of the manuscript and can be navigated through the main and footer menus.

4. A note on the first-draft English translation

This site includes a provisional English translation of Libro segundo: De contrapunto, completed in 2021. The translation has not yet undergone full editorial revision and should not be cited in its current form. A substantially revised version is planned for 2026. Further information is available here.

5. Editorial marks used in the provisional English translation

The following editorial conventions are used:

• [Square brackets] indicate Lusitano’s own authorial corrections in the manuscript.
• The sign Marg. marks marginal additions by Lusitano.
• [Bold brackets] indicate additions by the translator.
• Highlighting marks typographical issues identified in the French 2013 edition.
• Paragraphing follows the French 2013 edition.
• Words written between dots in the manuscript are rendered in italics.
• The sigla ‽ and § indicate doubt and sectional divisions.

6. Example numbering system

As the manuscript does not provide numbering for the musical examples, all items have been assigned editorial identifiers. The present system combines a continuous sequential numbering (1–247) with the family-based classification introduced in Philippe Canguilhem’s 2013 edition (e.g., Ex. 6a, Ex. 6b). Each example is therefore referenced using a compact dual notation (e.g., 9 Ex. 6a), enabling both precise citation and recognition of structural relationships across example families.

7. Open access and research infrastructure

The materials presented on this site form part of open research datasets archived on Zenodo and integrated within the Improvised Counterpoint Sources and Corpora research infrastructure. Source files, editorial documentation, and version histories are maintained in public GitHub repositories, ensuring transparency, citability, and long-term accessibility. All texts, transcriptions, and recordings are freely available for research, teaching, and performance.

8. Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) (Project no. 11A9922N). Thanks are due to Kirby for providing a licence that supported the development of this digital corpus, and to Daniel Guillan for sustained guidance on all things web-related, generously shared over many years.